A Cornish MP is demanding action following a suspected arson attack on Monday next to a student accommodation block which has remained empty for three years.

Jayne Kirkham, Labour MP for Truro and Falmouth, said “definitive action” needs to be taken to make the 528-bed purple Studytel building in Penryn safe and inhabitable – or it needs to come down.

Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service was called to reports of a fire next to the abandoned block of student flats on Kernick Industrial Estate at 7.30pm on September 1. The fire service said an area of vegetation and plastic was well alight when it arrived on site. Firefighters tackled the blaze and brought it under control before extinguishing it.

Ms Kirkham has spoken of her frustration concerning the empty building, which is increasingly becoming a danger zone and constant irritant to neighbouring residents and businesses. She said: “Monday night’s fire next to Penryn’s purple block is extremely worrying and nearby residents are rightly concerned. Thanks to the Cornwall Fire Service for dealing with it so quickly – however this half-built block has become a safety hazard.

“Penryn Town Council and local residents have been tirelessly campaigning for action but very little has happened for three years. We need definitive action – to make the site safe, take it down or finish the build. I will be meeting with the building’s owner’s representative again and working with the councils to get the action local residents need and deserve.”

The huge purple building was abandoned three years ago without anyone ever living in its 528 units. Sondica, the company behind Studytel, says that work was halted due to the contractor going bust and that the huge block’s entire frame will now have to be replaced due to new changes in building regulations.

Permission was granted for the student accommodation block by Cornwall Council’s planning department in 2018. Sondica contracted Caledonian Modular Ltd to build the £40m project. However, the construction company went into administration and work stopped on the ‘purple cube’ in March 2022.

There seems to have been little if anything done to the building since then and it has fallen into a shocking state of disrepair. A public football field at the rear of the building was supposed to have been returned to community use, but hasn’t.

Following Monday’s fire, neighbouring resident James Clewett said: “The building being a s***-heap is attracting a generally higher level of delinquency, especially this summer holiday. The fire was clearly arson, there was a scorched metal flask left at the site that we all suspect contained petrol, and probably the same group of teens were seen fleeing the site.

“Everyone called the fire brigade. I took a couple of irreplaceable items out of my house and put them in my car, which my neighbour moved down the street for me – while I stood with a hose pipe dousing the trees until the big boys arrived with a proper hose and sorted it out. It was genuinely pretty frightening. I was never in fear for my life, but it was easy to imagine everything else going up in smoke.”

Mr Clewett added: “Hopefully this will create some impetus to actually return the field to the community. We have been pushing hard for a couple of years now to have the field put back as a football pitch. It was only rented as a depot for six months. That was five years ago, it’s time to give it back. The whole situation is a mess.

“My neighbours and I are desperate. Living next door to an increasingly derelict mess, that is attracting the worst kind of human behaviour, is becoming a genuine burden that we’re all carrying. I want to scream that from the rooftops – please give us our community back!”

Earlier this year residents of the Trevance estate, which looks on to the back of what has been dubbed locally as the ‘Kernick Carbuncle’, told us they’d had enough after high winds brought insulation and purple pieces of cladding flying into their gardens. One neighbour, who didn’t want to be named, said: “It’s disgusting – everybody here thinks it’s the biggest eyesore going. We all believe it should come down down as it’s basically falling apart.

“As well as the fact that the football field at the back was supposed to have been returned to the community and hasn’t been, there are 528 units which have been empty for three years, which could have been used by students or used to help during the housing crisis.

“We’re all fed up to the back teeth with it. We have to open our curtains every morning and see that. We can complain to the council all we like about it, but we feel ignored.”

Sondica have been contacted for a response to the growing concerns in the area.